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[Guide] A little guide to Galaxy S to latop via DLNA

[Guide] A little guide to Galaxy S to latop via DLNA
Updated 08/17/2010
A Little Guide to The Galaxy S DLNA
Note: This is not meant to be a comprehensive guide, but rather a starter's guide to get you on your feet. If you want to add more contents to this thread, feel free to do so. If you want to post this guide somewhere else, also feel free to do so, but do give credit where it is due.
Wikipedia's definition of DLNA: The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) is a non-profit collaborative trade organization comprised of more than 250 member companies[3] in the mobile, consumer electronics, PC, and service provider industries. Alliance members have stated the common goal of using standards-based technology to make it easier for consumers to use, share and enjoy their digital photos, music and videos.
What this mean is that DLNA allows you to stream videos, pictures and music across multiple platforms without the need to actually transfer the file itself. Streaming between hardwares that comes with the DLNA label is easy. However, if you do not have a wifi capable TV, the next best option would be to stream to a computer screen instead. And here is what you need:
A Galaxy S (or a Captivate for our dear U.S. buddies)
A wifi capable computer - which can be a laptop or a computer connected to a wifi router.
Windows Media player 12 (Windows 7 only) or XBMC.
PC Share Manager is no longer necessary for streaming to Galaxy S. Hurray
Samsung PC Share Manager. Download HERE. Click on Software.
Streaming to computer
Step 1 :
Connect both computer and Galaxy S to the same wifi network router. If you are using a Desktop, plug it into a wireless router, and then connect the Galaxy S to the router. If you are using a laptop, either connect wirelessly to the router or plug it in, and do the same for the Galaxy S. (Windows 7 Only You can also connect the Galaxy S to your laptop directly using Connectify. In practice, this works the best for streaming large videoes. )
Step 2 :
Launch DLNA on your Galaxy S. Wait for it to finish loading. (when the spinning circles stop.)
Step 3 :
Launch Windows Media Player 12. Go to library. You should see Galaxy S under "Other Libraries". Choose whatever you want to stream from your phone, and it should work.
Alternative:
Launch XBMC. Now this is a little more tricky. You will have to add the folders yourself. E.g. Go to video -> add source -> Browse -> UPnP Devices -> Galaxy S. Here you see 3 folders with messed up names. You will have to figure out which is which by trial and error. On my laptop, the first one is picture, the second is video and the 3rd is music. Yours might be different. Once you have added the folders in, you can play them normally.
Streaming to Galaxy S
Step 1:
Unfortunately, neither WMP nor XBMC supports this. Instead, you will have to use Samsung PC Share Manager, which you can download above. Download and install it.
UPDATE:
c2k from AndroidForums and ssj4Gogeta1 from xdaDevelopers found a way to browse media files through WMP 12. Thank you guys.
Open Network and Sharing Center.
Click on "Change Advanced Sharing Settings" in the left pane.
Expand "Home or Work"
Make sure Network Discovery and File Sharing are turned on. I've also turned off password protected sharing, don't know if it makes a difference.
Click on "Media Streaming Options" on that page.
Make sure your phone is connected to your computer via a network. The network type should be set as "home" ("work" should work too), not "public". Streaming only works on home networks.
Select "All networks" from the "Show devices on:" dropdown list.
My phone was listed as "unknown device". Select "Allow" next to it. (You need to turn to DLNA on your Galaxy S first, and it might take a while for your PC to detect the phone. Patience, my young padawan.)
Now open Allshare on your phone. Select "Play file on a server through my phone", select the server (your computer), and you should be able to browse your music library.
If you want to push songs from your phone to WMP, you can open WMP and from the "Stream" menu select "Allow remote control". You can then push songs/videos/pictures from your phone to WMP by selecting the "Play file from my phone on another player" in Allshare.
If you can't set "Media Streaming Options" on your computer, you probably have "Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service" disabled. You need to set it to Automatic start. Open start menu, type in "services.msc", hit enter. Find the service and set it to automatic by double clicking on it.
For some reason I still can't push songs from WMP to my phone using the "play to" option in WMP, even though I have "upload from other devices" set to "always accept" in Allshare settings. Browsing the computer's library in Allshare works fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Step 2 :
Launch Samsung PC Share Manager. Use the left panel to select the folders you want to share, then press the icon with a “tick” on top of a folder to share the folder. Once you have added all the folders you would like to share, go to share, set device policy. If your Galaxy S is connect t the same network as your laptop, you should be able to see it here. Click Accept.
Step 3 :
Restart PC Share Manager.
Now you should be able to browse the folders on your Galaxy S.
Q & A
Q. Can I choose what to play on my laptop by browsing through my Galaxy S, instead of through WMP or XBMC?
A. No. For some reason this doesn’t work on a laptop/computer. However, there is sort of a work around for XBMC. I will explain this later in a different thread.
Q. Apart from WMP and XBMC, what other programmes can I use?
A. Check this page for details. I haven’t had time to try the rest yet. But do know that XBMC supports its own android remote app natively without the need to install another server app on your computer, and can be run at the same time as DLNA.
Q. Help! Some of the files cannot be played on my computer.
A. No idea. Try using another program.
Q. Help! Some of the files won’t appear on my Galaxy S
A. Files that cannot be played on your Galaxy S (as in if you have the file in the phone) won’t appear.

nice guide, this should be part of the FAQ or stickied

So that's something wrong cuz I can browse and play files from my laptop using galaxy s and I don't need samsung pc share.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk

No need to use PC Share Manager.
Open Network and Sharing Center.
Click on "Change Advanced Sharing Settings" in the left pane.
Expand "Home or Work"
Make sure Network Discovery and File Sharing are turned on. I've also turned off password protected sharing, don't know if it makes a difference.
Click on "Media Streaming Options" on that page.
Make sure your phone is connected to your computer via a network. The network type should be set as "home" ("work" should work too), not "public". Streaming only works on home networks.
Select "All networks" from the "Show devices on:" dropdown list.
My phone was listed as "unknown device". Select "Allow" next to it.
Now open Allshare on your phone. Select "Play file on a server through my phone", select the server (your computer), and you should be able to browse your music library.
If you want to push songs from your phone to WMP, you can open WMP and from the "Stream" menu select "Allow remote control". You can then push songs/videos/pictures from your phone to WMP by selecting the "Play file from my phone on another player" in Allshare.
If you can't set "Media Streaming Options" on your computer, you probably have "Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service" disabled. You need to set it to Automatic start. Open start menu, type in "services.msc", hit enter. Find the service and set it to automatic by double clicking on it.
For some reason I still can't push songs from WMP to my phone using the "play to" option in WMP, even though I have "upload from other devices" set to "always accept" in Allshare settings. Browsing the computer's library in Allshare works fine.

Wow thanks. Would never have figured that out on my own. That's pretty amazing.
Too bad that WMP doesn't support all video types. One of the main reason why I wanted to use DLNA is to stream youtube files I downloaded on my phone to a larger screen. So for now I am still sticking to XBMC, which by the way has an amazing remote app.
I will add your instructions to the guide later (together with your name of course).

@ssj4Gogeta1
This is amazing!
Works beautifully over wifi connection.
Thank you!

But it does...!
I know this is too late and you might have already found a solution, but you can use shark 007 windows 7 codec pack to enable WMP to play almost all media types. Give it a go! It's free and works flawlessly for me! I know this sounds like an advert but I'm pretty impressed. I even uninstalled VLC after installing this pacl. It's THAT good!
http://shark007.net/win7codecs.html
snapper.fishes said:
Wow thanks. Would never have figured that out on my own. That's pretty amazing.
Too bad that WMP doesn't support all video types. One of the main reason why I wanted to use DLNA is to stream youtube files I downloaded on my phone to a larger screen. So for now I am still sticking to XBMC, which by the way has an amazing remote app.
I will add your instructions to the guide later (together with your name of course).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

how to d/l .mov, view...and Twonky - wtf?

Seems like this problem should have a relatively simple solution, but after googling for quite a while, still can't figure it out.
A friend sent me a link directly to a .mov file. I thought I could just click the link and stream it. Instead, clicking the link in the browser brings up Twonky, which tries to get me to set up media sharing. For the life of me, I can't figure out how to just download (or stream) the .mov file to my phone.
If I can't steam, it looks like an app like arcMedia would allow me to view it once on my phone - but again, how do I get the browser to download instead of trying to open up Twonky when I click the link to the file?
Also, every time Twonky starts, there seems to be no way to close it except togo into settings/applications/running services and close it from there - is there an easier way?

Download act one video player. Works great with streaming media and videos on the sd card
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App

kitchencop said:
Download act one video player. Works great with streaming media and videos on the sd card
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the response. I found out that apparently Twonky tries to launch any file that the phone doesn't recognize. I tried to download a few video players including Act 1 that appeared in the "perform action with" dialog when I attempted to open the .mov file directly by clicking it within the email, but none of them worked to actually play the file.
I figured out I could download the .mov file if I went to my email using my browser and long-pressing the link and selecting 'save link' (long-clicking didn't work from within the email program...from there, it just opened the browser and automatically initiated a short-press which tried to stream and brought up Twonky). Once downloaded, then I was able to play with an alternative player (in this case - Vplayer worked, although this particular player didn't seem to support streaming as it didn't appear as an option in the "perform using" dialog that opens when short-clicking the link).

i hate how twonky wont let you download files i have removed it. so i could at least snag the file and keep for when i get home...

How to guide: Orb for streaming. Through Wifi from your PC.

So I thought I start a thread giving some help to those who would like to stream content, the easy way from your home PC, without the port forwarding, firewall, and network issues (as in how the heck do I configure it).
So here goes a first try (udated1.0.3):
1. Download Orb and install (on your home PC): http://www.orb.com/en/download_orb
2. Create an Orb account.
3. Add folders to Orb's library through the controlled panel, select the type of content that Orb should expect to find in that foulder (advanced tab).
4. Make sure you have flash installed on your mobile device.
5. Browse to Orb's website and log in, do not use any of the market apps, they either will not work or quality will suck.
6. In Orbs settings (center bottom) then stream (center top), then set to flash save. (HAT TIP Melvnx)
7. Quality depends on your internet connection, both LAN and WAN along with the quality of the local wireless. I have also found it can depend on the time of day, at my college around noon everybody hits the WIFI at the same time and quality sucks.
8. (This might no longer be true) If you pause the video upon resume it will seem to play fine for a couple of seconds and then reset so you must remember how much time elapsed and backup a page and hit resume (top of page given in hours min sec) from the point you left, if you pause it again you must add the two elapsed times together to resume.
Any help expanding or fixing this guide is greatly appreciated.
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App

richardjr said:
So I thought I start a thread giving some help to those who would like to stream content, the easy way from your home PC, without the port forwarding, firewall, and network issues (as in how the heck do I configure it).
So here goes a first try:
1. Download Orb and install: http://www.orb.com/en/download_orb
2. Create an Orb account.
3. Add folders to Orb's library through the controlled panel, select the type of content that Orb should expect to find in that foulder.
4. Make sure you have flash installed on your mobile device.
5. Browse to Orb's website and log in, do not use any of the market apps, they either will not work or quality will suck.
6. The only Browser that I have found that works consistently is Skyfire, I have had the built in browser working but now it forces me to choose an external player which brings down the quality extremely. Skyfire will play it in the browser although it has a few issues, when you go to play it brings up a popup window that is blank, if you touch in the lower right corner of the popup it will go to full screen and play beautifully.
7. Quality depends on your internet connection, both LAN and WAN along with the quality of the local wireless. I have also found it can depend on the time of day, at my college around noon everybody hits the WIFI at the same time and quality sucks.
8. If you pause the video upon resume it will seem to play fine for a couple of seconds and then reset so you must remember how much time elapsed and backup a page and hit resume from the point you left, if you pause it again you must add the two elapsed times together to resume.
Any help expanding or fixing this guide is greatly appreciated.
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App[/QUOTE
I have found that Orb works just fine from the stock browser but you have to go into settings and to streams and change it to flash. It will give you better quality if you stream that way instead of the default stream.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

[Help] Play streaming video using video player instead of browser

Hi,
I browse DailyMotion from my Galaxy S a lot using the stock Android browser (i'm using the desktop version of the site, rather than the mobile version). Whenever I try to play a video from DM, the browser would prompt me and give a choice between playing the video in the browser itself or playing it using the built in Video Player application. I always choose the latter option since it has less lag and better seek control.
However since yesterday the browser no longer gives this prompt to choose preferred player. It would always load the video within the browser which is sort of annoying. Do you know of a way to force the streaming video to be played using video player app instead of within the browser itself?
So far I have tried the following with no success:
- Rebooted
- Checked and cleared default associations
- Cleared data on Internet app
- Cleared cache, history,etc and even reset internet settings to defaults
The only change I remember doing prior to this issue was upgrading Flash player from 10.3 to 10.3.185.22. I tried rolling back to 10.1 and results were still the same. Any help is appreciated. I'm running stock Froyo 2.2.
Thanks in advance.
P.S. - I still get this prompt when trying to play YouTube videos. I get to choose between browser and YouTube app.

Try this...works on my tab with 2.2...
Go to Settings>Applications>Browser and click on it. Then in the screen which opens up where it says uninstall, move etc....just scroll down to "launch by default" and press clear defaults. Now press back and exit and open up the browser and it should give you a choice of app as before...
Sent from my GT-P1000 using XDA Premium App

Thanks for the reply. However I had earlier tried this to no avail. There were no defaults associated with the Browser and the button was greyed out (in my phone there is no app named 'Browser', instead it's named Internet)

I used to get the same thing Ram. I dont think it has to do with any settings with your phone. It must be something dailymotion did because I dont get the same prompt like I did last time.

Kid friendly movieplayer

Hi,
On longer trips I want to use my Xoom as a movieplayer in the car for the kids. I'm looking for a kidfriendly-way to display the movies (large icons or something like that) so they can easily navigate and start a movie. My oldest is 6 years.
Any suggestions ?
Thanks in advance !

Moboplayer
I'm a big fan of mobo player. You can set it to check certain directories as default and it displays thumbnails to choose from. My just turned four year old can navigate it no problem. The other cool thing is that while a movie is playing you can hit the menu button and it will lock the screen until you hit menu again.
Best of all its free. Load up the app in the market and the first time you start it it will prompt you to download device specific files.
One more thing - if for some reason the hardware decoding isn't playing a file just hold down the file and it will give you a prompt to play it with software decoding. If it becomes a constant problem you can set software decoding as the default.

I use MovieBrowser HD as the front end, and Mobo player with its codecs (that it will download when you first launch it) to play the movies back. I have a 32gig uSD card loaded up with movies convered via DVD Catalyst 4.
My 3 year old can turn on my Xoom, unlock it, connect my Logitech BT stereo head set, find MovieBrowser HD app (no matter if I have an icon on the home screen, or he has to go to the app drawer), and launch whatever movie he's in the mood for. He even goes up to my room to grab it when he wants to watch a movie.
When I hang it over a "seat back protector/organizer" in the car it becomes my "rear seat entertainment center" for him. Glad I didn't spend the money on the rear seat DVD system option in my car (would have been an added $3000). He just reaches out and does what he needs to, and he's happy.
Unfortunately, I rarely get to use my Xoom now

I found it easier to use the stock video player. Spent $30 on any DVD converter for android it converts the files and optimizes for Xoom. Then I did not need to worry about codecs and why it won't play an MKV file today. Also found it kid friendly with big pictures from the beginning of the movie so most of the time they can identify what it is without having to read the title.

Mizuu?
/10 char

MX Player !!!
Just yesterday I installed the newest MX Player again to see what kind of feature set it has. And I don't even know how new it is but it actually has two separate "Kid Lock" modes.
So, in the Settings->Player->Touch Controls->Lock Mode
There are two options:
1) Kids Lock - locks out the screen and buttons (except for power and volume at least on my Galaxy Nexus)
2) Kids Lock (+ Touch Effects) - Same as kids lock, except it adds ToddlerLock style screen effects.
I hope this helps!

piotrusc said:
Hi,
On longer trips I want to use my Xoom as a movieplayer in the car for the kids. I'm looking for a kidfriendly-way to display the movies (large icons or something like that) so they can easily navigate and start a movie. My oldest is 6 years.
Any suggestions ?
Thanks in advance !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Go to the screen where you want to place the movie shortcut.
2. Find your ES File Explorer App. And open it.
3. Find your folder that has your digital movies and open it.
4. Find the movie you want to create a shortcut with and long press it.
5. Next you will see different options, chose the one that says “Shortcut” it will automatically place it on the screen.
6. Now back all the way out of ES File Explorer until you get to the desktop.
7. Long press the shortcut you just made, and choose edit.
8. You will see a box pop up along with the keyboard. Type the name you want to call it or just delete the file extension example (mp4, etc)
9. Next tap the big icon to change it and choose select picture, then Gallery, then you should see the movie Icon you have downloaded select it then hit OK.
To find the movie icons just do a Google search for the movie (Example: Fast and the Furious 2 icons)
http://www.fanpop.com/spots/the-fast-and-the-furious-movies/images
I always use Fanpop.com and once you get on the movie page there is usually a movie banner at the top of the page and to the left of the banner there is a picture of the movie. Just long press and chose view image, it will open up to a small picture in the upper left hand corner. Long press and choose “Save Image”. It should place it your gallery folder. You should probably do this first before you create shortcuts for your movies.